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I’d like to talk about drama shooting more as I made more than 170 works. Today I’d like to explain my bamboo woks in the drama. I belong to Sogetsu school and they say there are more than 500 schools in Ikebana world. As for Sogetsu school, we are good at using bamboo a lot. Since the 3rd headmaster, Hiroshi Teshigahara, found the new way of using bamboos, all the members of Sogetsu school are mesmerizing at diversity of bamboos.

Assuming that here is a beautiful hotel lounge where Ikebana artists are charged in all decoration, I decorated a huge space with a lot of bamboo works.

If you see the Ikebana besides an actor, it’s easy to imagine how big it is. Originally this place was a pier on script, but the director loves Ikebana passionately and he changed the place to the hotel lounge with Ikebana decoration. Old guy wants to exploit a young guy in this scene. I made Ikebana to make it reflect the horrible influence of an old guy to a young guy. It looks like bamboo are almost attacking him from backward.

This is another Ikebana in a shooting. Assumed that here is a bath room of the president, the director asked me to make Ikebana that make him look like a God.

With an actor, Fumiyo Kohinata, who is a famous actor in Japan and he is always kind and warm and cheer up all staffs. But in shooting, his character never smile as he is a strict and silent president of a Ikebana school.

In the second shooting in a bathroom, I used bamboos again. WARIDAKE, split bamboo is surprisingly soft and flexible and we can express beautiful curved lines.

This is a renewal show of one Ikebana artist. The shooting was done at club space.The dancers show sexy and powerful performance among bamboo structure.I used bamboo also at the apartment of main character. The theme is stylish and sophisticated atmosphere as main character is a daughter of the president.

If I used tropical materials, the wall decoration of bamboo can be tropical.

This colorful composition used in one love scene. The director told me, “Let’s make a mermaid castle”. I painted a lot of materials with soft and light colors and tried to make a mermaid castle where a new love will be born.The structure that looks like coral is one made from combining a lot of branches that I painted with white.

This summer was the most exciting one in my life. I supervised and also created Ikebana as an Ikebana artist in a Japanese serial drama that included 10 episodes. The drama shows Ikebana world and people who live in that world. Many characters who are Ikebana artist appear in drama.

When I heard this mesmerizing story form TV producer and screen playwright, I though this was a precious opportunity for me to show Ikebana to as many people as possible. Most of Japanese know the word of Ikebana, but they don’t know how Ikebana is truly like at all. Ikebana is an art, like paintings, music, and sculpture like Sofu Teshigahara ( 1st president of Sogetsu school) said.

Drama’s name is “Born to be a flower” (高嶺の花）The main character is a beautiful woman who is a daughter of the president of a fictive school. People think she will inherit the position of president from her father. She has to get married with some eligible high-class guy, but she falls in love with a guy who is not rich, not handsome, but just gentle and pure.

Drama shows 2 different world, the gorgeous Ikebana world that she belongs to and the working class but friendly world he belongs to. As for Ikebana world, many characters make each own Ikebana. Some guy is fighting with another guy silently and they fight with flowers. I reflected each character on each Ikebana. The challenging point is how make each Ikebana look different and make them be meaningful in the story of drama.

She is Satomi Ishihara, beautiful actress and acts heroin. Her Ikebana should be stylish and something new.

Her farther’s Ikebana is heavy, deep and traditional as he is a president of a school.

This is heroin’s Ikebana in her demonstration. She gets depressed with a lot of pressure and burden and she never use vivid and clear colors a lot in her Ikebana. That’s director’s request. Every Ikebana I made in drama has a meaning and can be a powerful effect to make story get deep.I used mainly green color avoiding pink and yellow happy colors in this huge Ikebana.

The largest Ikebana, maybe I can say a big installation, is this.

The height of venue is 16m. To make a powerful entertainment in this huge venue, I used more than 50 bamboos that have 4m height.

One guy has a great ambition and thinks Ikebana can be a good business. His works should reflect his ambition and I used red and black as a sign of ambition. I painted Bamboo with red and black and cut in 2 parts, then showed inside part of bamboo.

From a distance they look small, but each one is huge. This part is made from a band of split bamboo. I love split bamboo as they are flexible and can express easily a beautiful curved line.

Now I’m checking the center part of the stage. I cut a part of bamboo and made that a vase and arranged flowers.

It’s show time! the collaboration work, music and dance and Ikebana.

I’d like to talk more on the next blog as anyway there are 174 Ikebana works in drama. If you want to quickly check my all works in that drama, please check my Instagram. My Instagram is here! https://www.instagram.com/mikaotani_flowers/

The main character, Haru, has trauma for his family home. His father is a famous politician with high career aspirations and when the father realized that Haru has a enormous high IQ, he was trying to exploit his son’s talent. The director requested me to create an Ikebana that is scary and pull over people to the dark side. Ikebana can express negative aura as well as positive aura.

Here is the photo of location setting. Haru, when he was 5 years old, is reading a lot of books in front of Ikebana.

Ikebana looks like haunting a boy.

The red materials that looks like spreading vein is RUTOJI, a bleached painted branches.

Another Ikebana is this.

This scene is symbolic in that movie that Haru is forced to do a brain test to check his high IQ.

A little bit making process is here. I’m discussing with an art director.